As of late, HateToHelp@gmail.com has been full of emails about clothing, and how to give clothing away, and funny things people did with clothing, and what these particular pieces of clothing looked like. This reminds us of the song, "Borrowed Clothes," by Rebecca Riots, about the free box in Berkeley's People's Park. While we formulate a more extensive post on the uses of clothing for clearing your karma and aiding the world's lesser clothed, we had some thoughts about money.

Sometimes, it is better to buy someone something they like than give them money. Sometimes this is not true at all, of course, but this story is an example of when it is true. Yesterday, we found ourselves bargain shopping with a beggar and her baby in the grocery store. She was being silly, and thought that we should spend our money on an overpriced kind of powdered milk (the mother of baby was sick with something that prevented breast feeding - don't worry, this was our first concern about the situation, as breast milk is much healthier than anything powdered, as the famous Brazillian favela studies show). Instead, though, we found a much more economically priced can of formula, and thus extended budgeting knowledge in the process as well as felt smart about said budgeting knowledge and the fact that we did, indeed, get a good deal.

The point of this post, though, is to make sure that when you do give things or money to people who you think need it, you do it wisely, and kindly, and more often than you think is necessary in this world, and that you write and tell us your thoughts on doing it, your funny experiences doing it, and why you do it in the first place. Thank you, run-on sentences, for existing.